


Dreams, Memories and Blur

by MeeMaw



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Heavy Angst, repost, s8 didn't happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-31 00:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20782508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeeMaw/pseuds/MeeMaw
Summary: It has been a year since she returned from the heart of winter, but she is a relic frozen in time, in someplace between her memories and dreams, in someplace betweenhissilence and smiles.





	Dreams, Memories and Blur

**Author's Note:**

> For a dear friend. They know who they are!
> 
> It's a repost of an older story of mine that is now orphaned. Please ignore if you've read it already. Apologies for the inconvenience.
> 
> Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16735593
> 
> Unbeta'ed, all mistakes are my own.

Dreams, Memories, and Blur

*-*-*

It has been a year since she returned from the heart of winter, but she is a relic frozen in time, in someplace between her memories and dreams, in someplace between _his_ silence and smiles.

In her memories, she loses Viserion when she goes to save _him_ beyond the Wall and then Rhaegal willingly chooses _him_. Viserion, her gentle son who had proudly perched on her shoulder when she commanded the Dothraki to follow the Red Comet and Rhaegal, the namesake of the pinnacle of sanity and valor in her life until _he_ came along.

She had found a home in him and she would have given up everything for him. Even her dreams.

But she is grateful she still has her dreams, for how else can she see him now?

She dreams of him often. In her dreams, his aura is blissful. His smile is sly when they are alone and shy when they have chaperones, but he always smiles. What did they say about the King in the North? ‘_He is a broody, sullen man._’ She never saw it until --. But in her dreams, as in life, he smiles, for her.

She has memories to corroborate her dreams. But her memories are not all as pleasant as her dreams.

Her memories are of a long journey, one she thought she would not be able to make but fate made it happen. In her memories, she is the Queen of Fire, and he is the King of Winter. Together they fight the darkness and then find each other in the darkness of night. He waits for her to come and slip inside the sheets beside him. They strain their eyes to see what they cannot see when it is bright outside. When the darkness of night defeats them, they close their eyes to the world and the rough, scarred hand of his can see what his eyes cannot and she takes his face in her hands, drawing the cold out of him, giving him life anew. When the strokes of their hands and the curls of their tongues still, they shudder in each other’s arms and find solace in their only selfish deed. Nestled against his firmness, she coos lovingly, and he gives her a rare smile that's hers and only hers. She remembers it like the back of her hand and in those moments, the line between memories and dreams is a blur.

She often wakes up with tears on her cheeks and then draws her knees to her chest, wanting to go back to her dreams, where he exists. No matter how much it hurts, memories of the sounds of his measured cadences when in command of men, and his husky drawls when he made demands of her, slash through the deafening silence that reigns over her world now.

She does not dream of the Wall. But she cannot forget what happened there. He had not looked at her for a time and then she stopped seeking him out. In her memories, she has not seen him smile since. But in her dreams, his smiles are effortless, and they are all from before. _Before_ her world came crashing down on her at the pronouncements of the three-eyed-raven returning from the Haunted Forest. The day she felt the first flutter in her belly and she knew what it meant, she had run to him, to tell him that _that_ one Night’s Watch vow he often spoke about and would have loved to forsake for her, was broken, and so was the witch’s curse. She had denied the truth for too long and now it was too late. She thought he would be happy for it, she was going to tell him, but he was cold and his eyes held rage and screamed _agony_. She left his doorway and whispered to herself, _‘..later..’_.

The memories become a stabbing pain in her heart when he turns out to be a man of his words and ensures that the living win, leaving her alone and lonely to pay the colossal price of that victory. Rhaegal’s corpse is found in a lake of ice and blood, and no one can find him. She remembers urging Drogon deep into the North, flying farther than the Heart of Winter until her lungs refuse to breathe. She wants to rain fire and tear the world asunder when the firm nag of life reminds her -- there’s another that needs her. She turns around to keep alive what could have been the most beloved to _him_.

In her memories, she stands atop the cliffs of Dragonstone and peers towards the western horizon and says, “This cannot be my home –" he was her home and her life. He left without _knowing_ and she curses herself every day and still thinks he may have been happy for it. She is too broken to mend the soul of Westeros, yet she vows to stay, to heal his people and hers. In the end, it is easy when she finds those brave and loyal ones who desire to do the mending and she can finally turn her back on Viserys’ dream. Three hundred years ago, a dragon's fire forged the Seven Kingdoms into one and now, her grief lets it drift apart.

Her memories bring her back to Meereen. Her dragons are gone; Rhaegal, Viserion and _him_. She lives because they left souvenirs of love for her to nurture; one nest under the pyramid, one inside her bones. _Mother of dragons._ Not bride, never the bride of her _Dragon_.

In the Great Pyramid of Meereen, she sits on a hard slab they call her throne. Everything is a blur today and she strains her eyes to see; rubbing them with the back of her hand again and again and again -- but it’s still a blur. She scrunches her face in annoyance, “Why won’t they stop?” She innocently asks Missandei when her tears keep falling unbridled.

She is seeing a ghost; a ghost from her past, the ghost from her dreams.

Missandei places her hand on her shoulder and presses her fingers, “Your Grace -- ” She looks up and sees glossy eyes all around her. “What is it?” No one answers.

He has many more scars on his face and his eyes are pits of blackness. He’s leaner than the man from her memories and dreams. But she recognizes him, his eyes that spun stories at night, his lips that caressed her skin, his hair her fingers had wed, and his blood that sang to her. He is still as comely as he was the day he first came to her shores, in another place, in another time; proud and fearless, head held high and the epitome of stubbornness that drove her crazy and made her fall in love with him all the same. She remembers it all, and him, he who is etched under her skin.

He draws his sword, bends down on one knee and bows his head. “Your Grace.”

It hurts. _‘Not Dany? Not Daenerys? You once loved my name.’_ The words rest on her tongue but refuse to leave.

Ghost runs into a gallop from behind the throne room, lunges into him, throwing him askew, and he leans into its neck and weeps.

She struggles when walking down the steps of the hall; her lips quiver, her chest aches, and her feet feel unsteady. _‘Jon’_ she wants to say, instead, she touches his cheeks with a tremble and breathes when she finds him warm. She sobs for a heartbeat, not more, not less, and swallows the lump in her throat.

He wants to hold her close but does not know if she is still his to hold. He shakes his head and wonders, why he ever let her go. He feels distressed when he looks at the hurt in her eyes. Eyes that once gave him life, that shone like stars in a moonless night. _‘What happened to you?’_ he wants to ask. She looks gaunt and frail and he blames himself, curses himself. _‘You did this to her.’_

He follows her silently when she takes his hand in hers. They say no words to each other; the pain is too much to bear. 

He waits for her in a fine chamber she has given him, and the finest clothes he has ever seen, laid out for him. He does not deserve any of it, he thinks. She is the queen of the richest city, yet he does not want anything from her. What he asks is priceless and she may not give it to him. He will beg for her forgiveness and tell her that he regrets failing her above all else; mayhaps the Children found him for dead and nursed him to life solely to seek absolution.

He hears the banging of staff on the ground and stands. She is at the door and he sees two ethereally beautiful children on her either hip. A boy with dark hair and her eyes and a girl with her hair and -- grey eyes. She walks past him, to his bed and lowers them both on their backs. They giggle and wave, and roll onto their bellies to sit up and crawl like cubs on a prowl. “Rhaella and Jon Targaryen,” she says drying her numb eyes, without looking at him. “They’re a handful. You cannot take your eyes away from them.”

_I cannot. Truly._ His heart is caught in a whirlwind of emotions, there is a solemn ache in his chest; whether it is from the wounds both old and new, or the rupture of his heart, he cannot say. Something akin to ‘father’ they stutter when she whispers “Issa aōha āeksio kepa. Ivestragon, _father_ -”, dipping her head to him. He sinks to the floor and vaguely caresses their toes.

“You have to forgive them. They do not hear the common tongue often.” She says meekly, and his eyes snap at her with madness, grief, and _disbelief_. He wipes his tears and then rubs his hands roughly against his tunic, riveting his nails in his palm, turning it raw and red. _Pain_. He summons _pain_ for that is the only constant in his life, the only sensation that stays. She shivers in agony and moves close, feathers a kiss on his brow and lets her unrelenting tears fall. She lovingly strokes his back and wordlessly lowers Rhaella in the cradle of his lap, taking her son in her own loving arms. He looks between their children and she is certain that he knows. She was right, _he is happy for them._ She sighs, and a burden lifts off of her as she repays the debt that always gnawed at her soul. Her chest and throat tie themselves in knots and unable to breathe, she sends for food and maids for help. Before he knows it, she has left.

He feels alive for the first time in eons, with pieces of him and pieces of her resting on his chest, sucking their thumbs, eyelashes fluttering open and close and he can see his heart beating outside his chest.

She tenderly beholds the sight of her babes sleeping with their sire. _Mercy. Gods have mercy, let this last,_ she begs. Without opening his eyes, he grabs her wrist harshly and she jitters. “It is dark, I'm taking them to their nursery.” She tells him in hushed tones. He has always been a light sleeper. She remembers how he used to startle awake with a distant noise and always impulsively wrapped an arm tightly around her while the other reached for Longclaw. He nods and then sheepishly asks if she would come back to him.

He smells like the rains on parched earth and she smells like the flowers that bloom from the heart of that very earth. He feels at loss of words when she curls into him and his chest is the rock that her tears cascade over, making him feel the burn of salt on his wounds. When sobs rack her, and she bawls in his shoulder, chanting his name between her hiccupped breaths, it is more painful than the bite of cold steel and he helplessly ruminates, _‘What’s one more wound to the heart?’_

When he lowers his face on hers, her tears burn hot against his lips and the heat reminds him of the rage that destroyed his world and everything that was sacred in it. None of it was her doing, it was not _her_ he had raged against -- he devastated her despite. “Forgive me --” his whispers in the shell of her ear and too shameless to hold his tears back, he soaks her silver in them. Only, she does not complain. She never complained when he ruined everything with his silence and she does not complain now. He wants her to humiliate him, question him, make him beg for her forgiveness. _Her love should not be so easily deserved._

He does not know that she does not have the heart to hold grudges. She does not have a heart at all. She gave it to him in entirety when he first stirred her with his touch, and its remnants she salvaged from the ruins of the war, she has bestowed upon the children of his flesh and blood. Forgiving comes easy when you have not much to hold on to.

She knows this isn’t a memory and prays if it’s a dream, then the _Gods have mercy_, and never wake her from this beautiful ruin.

She unleashes a torrent of memories in him, all of them beautiful, for that is who she is, _beautiful,_ flesh and soul. He wants to tell her that he is here, _here for you_. And the words forsake him once again. He stares at her with longing as she takes all his pain away.

When she weaves her fingers with his curls and clutches him to her chest, it’s a memory that she invokes in him, distant and yet, afresh. His bones and flesh remember the feel of her against his bareness and as she turns his torments to bliss, he finally abandons his silence for her, “I cannot exist without you, Dany.”

His movements are rending when he pushes against her and she pushes him back, but she needs it and she thinks he needs it too. She is silent as she writhes beneath him and he is quiet too. When Jon curls himself around her, she thinks,_ this is not a dream, for, in my dreams, Jon only ever smiled._ With that she melts into his warmth, their eyes meet, their souls unite and their hearts beat as one.

*-*-*

**Author's Note:**

> “Issa aōha āeksio kepa. Ivestragon, father -” means “He is your lord father. Say, father –"
> 
> Please consider leaving your thoughts if you like.


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